Nalandabodhi Practice Programs

Nalandabodhi provides all sangha members with detailed guidelines for practice. The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche trains and oversees the practice instructors in local centers as well as individually instructing students in meditation.

Beginner Classes:

Fresh Heart: a Meditation Course for the Curious. This 5 session class introduces those new to the practice of meditation to basic techniques designed to facilitate a calm body and cultivate a steady mind. This is also an opportunity to meet some of the Practice Instructors of Nalandabodhi and become familiar with the local center.

Practice Instruction:

Meditation instruction is available at all Nalandabodhi centers. Offered in individual and group formats by trained instructors, we welcome anyone wishing to learn to meditate, to deepen their understanding of meditation practice, or needing further understanding of the Nalandabodhi Practice Curriculum.

The Nalandabodhi practice path contains a wealth of techniques to support our meditation. The meditation curriculum provides complete guidance for beginning meditation through advanced practices in Vajrayana Buddhism. In this tradition, these methods of meditation are presented in written instructions, and explained and conveyed experientially through the oral instructions of a teacher.

Nalandabodhi Practice Curriculum

Shamatha

- Training the mind so that a student may develop tranquility and mental steadiness. This is the foundation for all subsequent meditation practices.

Vipashyana

- The development of insight or clear seeing. Having cultivated a settled mind, the student begins to look directly at mind's nature and investigate it's functions.

The Four Foundations of Mindfulness

- Bringing the practice of mindfulness and attention to body, feeling, mind, and phenomena, practice begins to become part of everyday life.

Meditation on Emptiness

- The student then familiarizes him or herself with the progressive stages of understanding shunyata--the insubstantiality and impermanence of body, outer forms, and mind.

Guru Rinpoche Guru Yoga

- Through this practice we train in connecting our hearts and minds with Guru Padmasambhava who brought the Indian Buddhist tradition of Vajrayana to Tibet and with the other lineage teachers who have continued to transmit these precious teachings.

Lojong Bodhicitta Practices

- Training in reversing ego's logic and developing a compassionate heart, we enter the Mahayana Path.

Four Reminders Practice

- The classic reasons that support human beings in appreciating the necessity of understanding mind and its nature and why the cultivation of mindfulness and awareness along with the discipline of perseverance are so important.

Ngöndro: Four Foundations Practice

- The preliminary practices for becoming a Vajrayana Buddhist.

Vajrayana Sadhana, Mahamudra, and Dzogchen Practices

- Offered to us from the Kagyu and Nyingma Tibetan Buddhist traditions by The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, these teachings become life practices for his Nalandabodhi students.

NOTE: This brief outline is an overview of the meditation practice curriculum. Complete instructions and detailed guidelines are available to Nalandabodhi members and students. Since practice relies on individual connections, we did not include the detailed curriculum here.